Sam Thielman

New York

Reporter and Critic at Freelance

Freelance Contributor at The New Yorker

Newsmonster. Seen @newyorker, @slate, @voxdotcom, https://t.co/aw24PLK3lx • he/him • have left this snakepit for the duration

Articles

"Tongues," by Anders Nilsen

2 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Sam Thielman

In "Tongues," Anders Nilsen takes the story of Prometheus and sets it in the modern world. When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. TONGUES: Volume 1, by Anders NilsenI've been getting TONGUES (Pantheon, 368 pp., $35), a retelling of the Greek myth of Prometheus, in the mail for years now.
Exiting Luigi’s Mansion

Dec 12, 2024 | forever-wars.com | Sam Thielman

Edited and with a coda by Spencer AckermanI'M WRITING IRON MAN FOR MARVEL COMICS! IF YOU PUT IT ON YOUR PULL LIST AT A COMIC STORE (AN ONGOING SUBSCRIPTION WHERE THE STORE RESERVES EACH ISSUE FOR YOU), I'LL SEND YOU FREE STUFF! EMAIL SOME KIND OF RECEIPT TO [email protected] AND THE SWAG WILL BE YOURS! ON THE MORNING of December 4, outside an investor conference at the Hilton Hotel on W.
The Best Graphic Novels of 2024

Dec 5, 2024 | nytimes.com | Sam Thielman

The year 2024 was an especially good year for comics readers who had been waiting a long time. Olivier Schrauwen brought his magisterial "Sunday" to a close after five years. After 15, Chris Ware published the third volume in his trilogy of "Datebook" comics adapted from his sketchbooks. And Charles Burns finally completed and published in English the project he'd been serializing in French - "Dédales" to our European friends, "Final Cut" to us.
Sex and Horror and the End of the World, in November's Graphic Novels

Nov 20, 2024 | nytimes.com | Sam Thielman

WORLD WITHIN THE WORLD (Fantagraphics, 320 pp., $39.99) is both a collection of Gfrörer's short works since 2010 and a sort of wide-ranging, loosely arranged survey of Western storytelling from cave paintings to the present day, including the NBC sitcom "Frasier." Her taste in types of trauma and dismay is just as catholic - think of this book as the Norton Anthology of Violence.
Sex and Horror and the End of the World, in November’s Graphic Novels

Nov 20, 2024 | flipboard.com | Sam Thielman

9 hours agoA duct-taped banana sells for $6.2 million at an art auctionNEW YORK — A piece of conceptual art consisting of a simple banana, duct-taped to a wall, sold for $6.2 million at an auction in New York on …NowSan Francisco’s Wave Organ Brings Sounds of the Bay to LifeView the full episode transcript Ever wondered what the San Francisco Bay sounds like beneath the water’s surface?
Confessions of A Poll Worker

Nov 7, 2024 | forever-wars.com | Sam Thielman

Here's what FOREVER WARS’ editor saw as a poll worker in his own pro-Trump part of Brooklyn Edited by Spencer AckermanSPENCER HERE, WITH SOME UP-FRONT ITEMS. This following edition is going to be a Sam joint. I'm currently moving a Zeteo piece of mine through their editorial process.
A Sense of Time Wasted (Productively) Anchors October's Graphic Novels

Oct 31, 2024 | nytimes.com | Sam Thielman

Can you redeem wasted time by making art out of it? That's the question the Belgian cartoonist Olivier Schrauwen asks in SUNDAY (Fantagraphics, 474 pp., $39.99), an enormous, wonderfully funny exploration of the nature of perception and memory. He conducts his research using an unflattering version of his cousin Thibault as his main character, and though Thibault stays inside his little rowhouse for nearly the entire book, "Sunday" is about, well, everything.
'The Great When,' by Alan Moore, and 'The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic'

Oct 25, 2024 | nytimes.com | Sam Thielman

"Have you got a name or should I just keep thinking of you as 'the liability?'" a beautiful young woman named Grace asks the protagonist of Alan Moore's THE GREAT WHEN (Bloomsbury, 315 pp., $29.99). He does indeed: Our hero rejoices in the name of Dennis Knuckleyard, and that's the least of his problems.
The Fires of Creation

Oct 3, 2024 | flaminghydra.com | Sam Thielman

by Sam ThielmanThe earliest story of self-immolation that I know is in Sophocles’ Women of Trachis, in which Heracles enlists his son, Hyllus, to help him build the pyre upon which he prefers to die rather than let the blood of the venomous Hydra consume him. It is the only way he will find relief. “[B]e the healer of my illness and sole physician of my agony,” he begs Hyllus. In Ovid’s retelling of the story for his Metamorphoses, Hercules is burned half away, leaving only his immortal part.
Beautiful Drawings of Bodies in Crisis Fill September's Graphic Novels

Sep 17, 2024 | nytimes.com | Sam Thielman

The brilliant cartoonist and designer Geof Darrow makes a forceful case against his own writing in THE SHAOLIN COWBOY: CRUEL TO BE KIN - SILENT BUT DEADLY EDITION (Dark Horse, 256 pp., $49.99), and not just with the fart joke in the book's title. Darrow, who designed the look of "The Matrix" and its sequels, presents his most recent "Shaolin Cowboy" story completely devoid of text in this unexpectedly definitive edition.